Because i'm a moron!

[mynihilism]

Alright, why is it on the benchmarks i have looked at for the Ti 4200's that the 128mb cards are just slightly slower then the 64mb ones? What benefit is there in getting the 128mb board?

[CrystalMethod]

The clock speeds on the 128 based boards are a little lower, that's why they score slightly lower. The reason for the more memory is the increased bandwith the card will be able to handle. Processing textures, polys and such.

[MospeadasDark]

Originally posted by CrystalMethod
The clock speeds on the 128 based boards are a little lower, that's why they score slightly lower. The reason for the more memory is the increased bandwith the card will be able to handle. Processing textures, polys and such.

Not bandwidth, just space. Useful for storing high detail textures and 4XAA.

Reasons why a 64MB card might be slower than a 128MB is the same as a 32MB to a 64MB card. Lack of video ram so it starts either swapping or using system ram.

64MB and 128MB running at 600mhz have the same bandwidth.

[mynihilism]

the 128 card is slower then the 64.

so basically the 128mb cards sacrafice a very small percentage of speed for being able to do graphic intensive programs better?

anyone have a link that would clarify the subject?

[MospeadasDark]

The 128MB cards are generally slower because vendors tend to use slightly slower RAM in 128MB cards as they are more plentiful than the top-of-the-line speed RAM chips.

Mayb a .1% hit due to memory addressing.

[larva]

Nearly all of these cards are built to the Nvidia GF4Ti reference designs. The 4200 use the older tsop ram carrier rather than the current bga topology of its more expensive 4400 and 4600 siblings. The Nvidia reference design for the 64mb 4200 uses 3.6ns ram, with a default operating frequency of 500MHz. The 128mb version uses high density but slow 4ns chips to create its larger frame buffer, with 444MHz being the default clocking. As such the 64mb cards perform measurably better due to the clock rate advantage and have similarly greater overclock potential due to the 10% faster sdram.

The tasty looking 4200's with 3.2 ns bga ram (like 4400's have) are essentially just 4400 reference designs with a 4200 chip on them. Which is all a 4400 really is anyway. These cards do not conform to Nvidia's market stradegy, and as such create ill will when an Nvidia partner card company chooses to build and sell such a device. As such these cards, while perfectly viable, are rare.